Given so many suggestions over the last 12 or so hours that “BryzgLOLov’s” giveaway goal to David Clarkson was emblematic of his status as the sole reason why the Flyers lost (though Claude Giroux’s suspension may have fared into the equation, too), however, TSN’s Bob McKenzie offers some much-needed perspective regarding Mr. Universe given that the moons, planets and stars around him didn’t deliver, either:

You can’t lay singular blame on Ilya Bryzgalov for Philadelphia’s loss to the New Jersey Devils, but by the same token, he was brought in to be the answer in net for the Flyers, and he was anything but.

In the clinching game, all three Devils’ goals against Bryzgalov weren’t great. The first one was a flutter ball, the second one was an absolute gift, and the third one, he may have been screened a little bit. At the end of the day, he didn’t get the job done.

You don’t want to equate everything to money but this is a guy who actually pulled down $15 million in signing bonus and salary this year. His cap hit is only $5.67 million for the Flyers but he’s got a nine-year deal at $51 million, or if you take away the somewhat bogus years at the end, a seven-year deal for $47.5 million.

The Flyers had to know when they got him that he didn’t have a playoff track record. He’d never won a playoff series before this year. He got through the first round series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, but it was almost in spite of himself along with the fact Marc-Andre Fleury didn’t play very well.

He’s now played 22 career playoff games and in 14 of those, he’s had a sub-.900 save percentage. That’s not nearly good enough. Good luck with that contract and good luck with Bryzgalov, Philadelphia because there is no playoff track record there.

couldn’t happen to a better team. Philly has been cheating the cap with these mega deals for a while and broke free of them, only to go to the same thing. No one will trade for that contract, unless an equally bad one is coming back.

Giroux showed his true colors in this series. He is a whining, cheap shot artist.

I was one of those fans, and when you looked at the team in this series, he was. Statistically, the Devils outdid everything to the Flyers by a large margin yet there were 2 OT games and a 1-goal game with an empty netter in the closing seconds. The simple thing to do would be to point at Bryz and say he’s the reason they lost but I’m not going to do that. He showed me enough in March that he can be a lock-down goalie and had flashes of it in the playoffs, just not enough. He could’ve been lights out this series, but the reality is, the way the Devils played, he almost needed to pitch shutouts for the Flyers to advance. I’m going to point to Laviolette’s inability to adjust to the Devils’ forecheck game and the Flyers being way too overconfident after taking out the Penguins. To me, those two things are what cost the Flyers this series, not Bryz’s play.

I didn’t like the Bryzgalov signing in June and I don’t like it now, but thoae blaming the loss to the Devils on Bryzgalov don’t have a clue.

Bryz was the Flyers best player in each of games 2, 3 & 4.

Not a single Flyers forward had a good series, and most were terrible. They couldn’t generate any zone time on New Jersey, and put pressure on an extremely shaky Brodeur.

The Flyers wingers couldn’t get pucks out of the defensive zone against pinching Devils defenseman. This lead to increased offensive zone time for New Jersey, which ended up completely wearing down the Flyers group of defenseman.

I don’t love Bryz, but he took way too much (all) the heat for this team all season long.

Bryz was slightly below average in Oct/Nov. He was dreadful for about 10 weeks from early December through mid-February. He wasthe best player in the NHL from late Feb until he fractured his tibia in late March.

After the injury he never regained his lateral mobility, and was mediocre in the playoffs.

Posted by
John
on 05/09/12 at 10:39 AM ET

The Devils beat ‘em in many phases, so this isn’t to discredit their victory. But Bryz was truly nothing short of terrible all playoff long. The only thing that saved him in the first round was that MAF was actually, somehow, someway, far worse than terrible, and the Flyers were incredibly effective at getting under the skin of all of the star players on the Pens.

Sean Burke is looking like a genius, and I’d be surprised if there aren’t teams, quietly and behind the scenes, of course, falling over each other trying to steal Burke away from Phoenix. Though I have to think they will kindly reject any requests to speak with Burke, assuming he is under a contract with the Coyotes still.

Did Rinaldo throw a single hit last night that wasn’t late? The Flyers seemed hell bent on delivering the big hit even after the puck had moved on. The Devils, made the hit when the puck was in play and hit with the intended purpose - to seperate a player from the puck.

Big hits get the team and crowd going, but if it consistently puts you out of the play what is the point? The Devils had puck pressure, the Flyers banged people off the glass once the puck was behind them.

Well Bryz can give up soft goals but it isn’t his fault the Flyers offense went cold. It was a bad line change by the Flyers in game 3 (I think) that resulted in the game winning goal, hard to fault him there.

I don’t know what it is about the Flyers but they always seem to have problems in net, no matter who they bring in.

No matter the question, Bryz is not the answer. Top price goalies are paid to steal a game here or there (i.e Quick, Lundqvist, Holtby and Smith who have all done it at least a couple times each this playoffs when their teams were completely outplayed) and give their team confidence in the “last line of defense”. Bryz did neither. Sure he kept them in a couple games but did not steal a win for them. In fact his recklessness with handling the puck and his perchance for falling asleep at the wheel resulting in a soft goal probably caused more issues for Philly’s D than anything else.

However with his contract size and length (and playoff history) he is going nowhere for a while. Flyers need to provide him with a puck Harding coach and sports physiatrist this summer. You never know, maybe they will see more that one month of brilliance next year?